Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>To my knowledge, this is the first book to try to understand the way in which enforcement rights are configured across both public and private law. It examines what it means for an enforcer to have a ‘right of action’; the way in which such rights are currently distributed between public and private enforcers across both areas of law; the devices via which their exercise is protected, moderated and controlled; and the explanations and potential justifications (deontic, moral, pragmatic, and constitutional) for choosing one type of enforcer over another. It draws on a wide range of examples selected from the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, detailing enforcement systems from Roman and medieval times right through to those operating in the modern criminal law, competition and consumer law, environmental law, administrative law, charity law, human rights law, the law of trusts, tort, contract, guardianship, and corporate insolvency. A theme of the book is that whilst the dominant paradigm suggests that public law is (and should be) enforced publicly by the State because it is concerned with the protection of public interests—and private law enforced privately because private law protects private interests—the truth is far more complex and interesting, involving frequent overlap, exceptions, and hybridity. The book details and rationalizes the basic enforcement paradigms and their exceptions, suggests improvements to design in particular contexts, and identifies some of the key challenges for enforcement in the twenty-first century. Not the least of these is the widening gap between the State’s regulatory ambitions and its own enforcement capacity, which increases the pressure for government to revert to private enforcement strategies (or public–private enforcement ‘partnerships’) in both public and private law.</jats:p>